


ain't my mind that matters

by amurderof



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Magical Realism, idk how smth can be magical realism in a setting w/ actual magic but you know what, roll with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8167366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amurderof/pseuds/amurderof
Summary: Bull’s seen the darequrnaas of a Tal-Vashoth after they’d buried her, bits of her in different holes around the island. She’d been picking off livestock and started targeting the help when they got in her way.The hiraas had opened it up, and the heart inside had still been beating.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the km prompt [here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13890.html?view=56912706#t56912706). Hope to post the rest by Saturday. o7

When he places the horn to his lips, when the Inquisitor urges he call off his men and let the dreadnought sink, he knows he’ll be dead soon.

It sits at the base of his thick skull. It flows through his veins. He waits for the pain that he’s seen distorting so many faces — the pain, and then the tranquility.

He does not die.

He sits amongst the Chargers, an ever-rotating group of them, Bucket and Quince and Mitten and Hart and on and on and on, and he nurses the same ale and waits for it. He has no frame of reference for how it’ll feel beyond what he’s seen — no one talks about it. To die by maaksur alqalb is ignoble. It means you forgot yourself, and your place, and you were a danger to not only yourself but to the whole.

As with any death, the body is then warded against demons and burned. Bull takes comfort in the knowledge that when his time comes, at least the South’s got that part down.

 

==

 

He’s alive in the morning, and when they begin the trek back to Skyhold.

He keeps his feet free of the stirrups, and holds loosely to his mount’s reins. When he falls, he doesn’t want to take the horse down with him.

He can’t be sure he’ll be dead by nightfall — with the dreadnought sunk and only Gatt hauling ass back to report, Bull’s got maybe three days. But he’d seen the efficiency with which someone could be taken down on Seheron: identify the defector, notify the hiraas, work through the ritual if time allowed.

If time didn’t allow, do it quick and clean, and wait for the body to drop.

He’s alive by the next morning, and the one after that.

What was patient, if anxious, acceptance twists at the back of head and curdles in his gut. The climb to Skyhold leaves him tired, skin clammy to the touch. He knows he must look like shit when Vivienne bridges the space between them and presses the back of her hand to his forehead, her mouth a thin line.

“You’ll head to bed and not to drink, then,” she commands, and he gives her a nod. He never thought he’d die in his sleep, but maybe that’d be better. Somebody’d have to drag his fat ass down the stairs, but the mages could figure something out.

A messenger wakes him the following morning with further instruction from Vivienne to take it easy and a request from Red to meet her in her aviary. He can’t do one without displeasing the other, but whatever Red’s got to talk about will likely have repercussions even after he’s slumped in a corridor, so he heads for the tower.

The variable he hadn’t considered was Dorian, sitting in his broad chair and muttering vinty shit under his breath, holding the spine of a book like he expected it to vault across the room at a moment’s notice.

It’s early still, which usually means Dorian’s not slept as opposed to having got up with the sun, and Bull gauges whether it’d be worse to greet him than say nothing at all. What they’ve got isn’t anything at all — words, usually barbs, thrown back and forth across the South’s monotonous trails, and looks Bull’s more adept at letting linger than Dorian is.

Dorian still looks, though.

“Cock’ll be crowing any second now. It’ll be sure to keep you up when you finally get to bed,” Bull says, because he expects to be dead before nightfall, and because it warms him to the bone, how long it takes Dorian to register the words in his state, to grasp the innuendo.

“Maker’s breath,” Dorian says on an exhale, and closes the book in his lap. “How good of you to think of me and my health, in relation to the cock’s call.”

Bull laughs on his way to the next set of stairs. “Always happy to help,” he calls, and Dorian says something particularly vintish, and Bull ignores the pang in his chest, of guilt and — something else.

He hesitates midway up the stairwell, waiting, waiting. But he doesn’t die, and so he continues up.

Red’s standing in front of her shrine, hands clasped behind her back. Before Bull can announce himself she waves towards the table by the window, where she receives most of her correspondence.

There are her usual orderly stacks of parchment, and a small plain wooden box in the midst of it. Bull frowns as he moves closer, until he can see the numbers and letters inscribed in its lid. Then he stops, and reaches for the railing to keep him upright.

“You know what it is then,” Red says, and turns from the niche. She sits at the table and shifts the box, lifting it in her hands. “I’ve not opened it, though I’ve seen its ilk before.”

It takes a while for Bull to find his voice. “Surprised to see it.”

She lifts a brow and places the box back on the table. “As am I, given what occurred on the Storm Coast. The Qunari are not known for their mercy.”

“Mercy means something different to Southerners,” Bull replies, false humor in his voice, and Red pushes the box towards him, to the edge of the table.

He’s not sure how long he stays there, the edges of his nails digging into the wood railing, until he feels as though he can support himself on his own two feet.

He takes the box, the darequrnaas, and holds it too tightly in his hands. It’s built to withstand pressure though. Pressure, and fire, and flood. It will open at a hiraas’ command, and only then if you have lost your way — if it is time for the hiraas to perform their most terrible of duties.

Bull thinks of the Storm Coast, and of how Gatt had no hiraas with him. Of Gatt’s expression when Bull lowered the horn. Of the betrayal there, and of the roiling anger when Gatt slipped back down the hill. Of the camaraderie they’d shared, and the way they’d always looked out for each other.

“Using our esteemed spymistress to acquire trinkets?” Dorian snipes when Bull pauses between the flights of stairs, to resettle the box in his hands.

‘Yeah,” Bull responds simply, and continues down.

 

==

 

He remembers the surgery, infrequently.

They wait until you’re assigned your first role, so they know how it should be handled. Saarebas were left whole until they became too dangerous, at which point they would be killed; usually though, you went under the knife with your tamassran’s voice in your ears, instructing you to breathe, and to sleep.

When Ashkaari became Hissrad, he woke up with precise stitches down his chest, and with a pulse that had no physical connection to his heart. This disconnect was strange, but he would become used to it, as everyone did.

He didn’t feel empty, or that there was anything different about him, and there was no ache beyond what came with healing. And so he healed, and then he was sent off to train.

“We will keep you safe,” one of the hiraas told him, before he left.

Her expression was serene, and Hissrad had trusted her.

 

==

 

He hadn’t seen the box, or known where it ended up. It was better that way, in case he ever lost himself. Layers of protection, managed by the hiraas for the safety of all.

Now he sits on the edge of his bed with the box in his hands. It’s been… it’s been a while, since he sat this close to it.

His chest doesn’t ache. That’s bullshit, the kind of saccharine nonsense Varric would write about.

He doesn’t feel a swell of emotion, just like he’s never felt emotionless without it. That’s the propaganda of Tevinter — that Qunari tear apart their chests to rid themselves of feeling, to make them easier to control, to remove all personality.

He fiddles with the lock on the front of the box. Sera could get it open for him, if he asked. Half the Chargers could take a pick to it, and the other half would be right behind with the suggestion of brute force.

He sits, quiet, and listens for the slow beating of his heart, echoed by the blood in his veins. He hears fuck all. The box is too sturdy.

 

==

 

“Thought that was a superstition,” Krem says, eyeing the scarring of Bull’s chest with new interest. Bull flexes a pec just to see the way Krem’s expression twists into a kind of despair. “Stop. Stop. I asked a simple question.”

“Didn’t ask anything,” Bull replies, and Krem lets loose a sigh before rephrasing:

“So it’s not a superstition then?”

Bull shrugs a shoulder, and gives himself time to consider the answer while he takes a swig of ale. “No use publicizing the reason we can get knocked on our asses and get back up. Bad strategy.”

From across the table Stitches frowns, but then he’s been frowning for the last hour. Bull thinks if given the chance, he’ll frown at least for the rest of the year. Healers don’t like it when bodies don’t work the way they’re supposed to. “Every time any of us has ever expressed concern over your safety was bollocks.”

“Aww,” Bull says, and makes to reach across the table to grasp Stitches’ arm consolingly. Stitches leans back from him with a curse. “I’m pretty sure if I got hacked in half, you’d need to bury me.”

“ _Pretty sure_ _,_ ” Stitches hisses, and leaves to acquire more alcohol.

 

==

 

It’s a real fight, downing a Tal-Vashoth. They’re unpredictable. Erratic. Even when you get a hand up on one, if you want to put ‘em down right you’ve got to locate their darequrnaas. Few of ‘em run without it, and the ones that don’t take the time to locate it fall to a hiraas and maaksur alqalb.

If they’ve got it though, and you can’t find it, you’re left with a couple options: one, dismemberment and burial, each piece apart from the rest. Decapitation if you don’t have time, but you can’t guarantee the body’ll stop moving — it’s better to do the job right. Two, tie ‘em down with something heavy and drop them to the bottom of the sea, which works better if you disposed the hands elsewhere first. Three, destroy the body with enough fire or force that not even the power that tied a Qunari to their heart could make sense of the lumps anymore.

Bull’s seen the darequrnaas of a Tal-Vashoth after they’d buried her, bits of her in different holes around the island. She’d been picking off livestock and started targeting the help when they got in her way.

The hiraas had opened it up, and the heart inside had still been beating.

 

==

 

“Blood magic,” Solas says consideringly after he’s learned of Bull’s darequrnaas, and the entire line of Dorian’s shoulders, the length of his spine, tense under his fancy leathers.

Solas lets the comment stand on its own, and Bull ignores the chill it sends across his skin when Dorian watches him closely, curiously, for the rest of their sojourn in the Emerald Graves.

 

==

 

Bull knows that conversation’s never going to go anywhere, because Dorian’s a master of a lot of different Tevinter bullshit, including artful avoidance.

Dorian watches him though, and Bull holds Dorian’s gaze until he looks away.

They fall into bed after a night of carousing, the excitement of the last outing’s dragon hunt still thrumming through Bull’s veins, color high on Dorian’s cheeks every time their eyes catch. Dorian’s fucking beautiful, and beautiful when he’s fucking — Bull tells him that, after, and Dorian hits him repeatedly on the arm before covering his own face with his hand, his groan of dismay bubbling up into laughter.

Dorian steadies himself on the back of the chair at Bull’s writing desk, sliding his boots back on, and when Bull doesn’t hear any more movement, or Dorian’s _goodnight_ , said in his warm, sleep-tinged tone, Bull looks over. Sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Hey,” he says, and keeps it at that.

Dorian’s hand rests on the desk, less than a foot from the darequrnaas. His fingers spasm once, like he’d considered reaching for it but stopped himself.

“It’s an old scar.”

It’s not what Bull expected him to say.

Bull glances down at his chest, unthinkingly. “One of the oldest.”

Dorian finishes tugging on his second boot and returns to the bed, standing within Bull’s reach. Bull doesn’t grab him, keep him where he stands, even if there’s the gentle urge to, just behind his ribs.

“At least now,” Dorian says, and there’s a bit of a pronouncement to it, and a curl to his lips, “I know why you’ve no concept of the very basic tenets of survival instinct, bellowing and flexing as you do during a battle.”

“Aw, you like it,” Bull replies with a grin, and feels warmth spread through the core of him when Dorian laughs and doesn’t deny it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! I'd love to hear from you in a comment below, or in my [askbox on tumblr](http://amurderof.tumblr.com/ask). Otherwise, your kudos mean the WORLD to me. Regardless, thank you so much for reading. This sucker should be finished this week (knock on wood).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey it's still technically the weekend, right?? enjoy!

There’s a steadiness to the whole affair. It’s comfortable. Not in a boring way — Bull’s had great sex, and he’s had frequent sex, and with Dorian it’s consistently a combination of both — but in a way he’s not sure how to categorize.

It’s good, though. Unnerving sometimes, knowing there’s something evolving between them he’s completely inexperienced with; but between figuring out how to fuck somebody you’re fond of, and the strange reality of being both alive and Tal-Vashoth, he’ll take the fucking fondness, hands down.

Bull still looks for ways to make it feel less weird. More straightforward. Or as straightforward as a relationship for somebody like him could be.

After that first night he hid his darequrnaas in the back of one of his drawers, and Dorian’s never brought it up again.

Bull doesn’t have to think about it either, squirreled away.

 

==

 

He takes a hit that shatters a couple ribs, probably makes ‘em pierce something squishy. He powers through the pain, relying on the steady beat of his heart half a country away. It hurts, but he ain’t gonna stumble. The real benefit of a darequrnaas, tied with his reaver training — the blood keeps pumping, and the pain gives him strength.

He swings for one of the weak points in the Venatori’s armor, the inch of skin between the soldier’s helmet and chestplate, and a spray of blood hits Bull’s chest. It’s fucking invigorating. He’s laughing when the bastard falls, and when he turns to survey the rest of the fight it’s to find the rest of ‘em have wrapped things up.

Sera’s cursing under her breath, picking bits of a stalker that got too close out of her hair, and yelling at Dorian about turning people into bombs. The Inquisitor’s rifling through the robes of the mage she was going at toe to toe.

Dorian steps around the fallen to stand at Bull’s side, hand hesitating to touch the bruise blossoming across his chest. “Here,” he says instead, and passes Bull a phial, red liquid coating the inside of the glass.

“I’m good,” Bull tries, but Dorian’s thunderous expression says otherwise, so he takes it and downs the earthy potion, chucking the phial behind him. He can feel it start to mend things inside his chest, faster than the darequrnaas would’ve done it.

Dorian’s look doesn’t change. “Did you know most people don’t rely on their assumed invincibility to survive an attack? Usually the goal is to avoid it from the beginning.”

“Yeah!” Sera shouts from across the clearing. “Any of the rest of us get smacked with an axe and we go _splurch_.” She moves her hands in some approximation of an explosion, above her head.

When they set up camp that night, Dorian clucks over the progression of the bruise, though Bull thinks it’s going well — it’s already yellowing around the edges.

Dorian eventually grants that _it’s healing remarkably_ regardless, and Sera affects a moderately accurate Solas drawl:

“ _Blood magic_ ,” she says, and spits on the dirt before the fire.

Bull tenses under Dorian’s touch.

Sera must see something on their faces because her expression drops and she tugs at her hair with one hand. “Aw shite, I was just playing, you know that’s what he’d say. Mister I can’t wipe my arse without telling you I’m better at it.”

Bull huffs a laugh that nobody buys and tells her it’s fine.

Dorian takes the first watch. When he returns to the tent, Bull wakes. Listens to him settle at Bull’s side, an arm across Bull’s chest.

His breathing never slows.

When Bull wakes, Dorian greets him with the face of a man who didn’t sleep, though he attempts a smile.

_Blood magic_ , Bull thinks, and kisses Dorian to hear his protestation of morning breath.

 

==

 

“Whether something is termed blood magic or not frequently depends upon whether or not those in power find it to be useful or dangerous.”

Bull takes the cup of tea Vivienne’s poured him carefully in hand, fingers pinched on the cup’s dainty ear, and takes a sip. It’s citrus — not what she usually has prepared — and he’s touched to think she did it for him.

“There are benefits to most types of magic, if used appropriately. The difficulty lies in determining what is ‘appropriate’, and for whom.”

Bull places his cup on the delicate saucer on the table between them. “You been talking to Dorian?”

Vivienne hums, and leans back on her settee. “Of course. But about this in particular?” She brings her cup to her lips and drinks, and continues, “He has kept his thoughts close to the vest.”

Bull looks out the balcony doors, squinting when the sun reflects off the snow of the surrounding mountains. “There’s no word for blood magic in Qunlat. We don’t need one. Saarebas don’t have the training of the south or Tevinter, and any magic Tevinter does is bad magic. We don’t need to specify.”

Vivienne smiles thinly, her gaze distant though she looks at him. “When a mage is brought to the circle, they are bound to a phylactery. Blood magic, condoned by the templar order and worked by mages, in order to ‘protect’ a mage from themselves, and to protect others. Is it unfair to suppose the Qunari use it to any different purpose?”

Bull thinks of the way his blood sings during battle, and of his madness on Seheron. “The only Qunari who don’t get darequrnaas are saarebas.”

Vivienne lifts a brow. “Saarebas are bound in other ways, are they not?”

Bull gives her that one. Then he thinks of protection, from yourself and for others. “Does having a phylactery somewhere make you feel safer?”

It’s a rude question, and the sharp look she gives him reinforces that. He’ll have to find her some of those fancy lavender chocolates she likes.

After a long moment she deigns to answer regardless. “When the system is fair, then it can serve as a check. But if either side of the equation holds all of the control, then they will abuse that power.”

Bull finishes his tea. Holds the cup between his hands and thinks of how simple it’d be to shatter it.

“It made me feel safer.”

 

==

 

Him and the Inquisitor have always been on shaky footing. Bull’s not used to Vashoth this far south — barely used to Vashoth anywhere. He’d made a rookie mistake their first meeting, assuming she had her heart only because she was a saarebas. That her parents kept her whole in case something went bad, fast.

He hadn’t voiced the entire thought, which is likely the only reason she hadn’t kicked him out. That, and she’s not a total greenhorn — she saw the value in retaining a mercenary troop, even if she hadn’t seen the logic in letting that same troop die to cement an alliance with a nation.

She doesn’t avoid him anymore, but she doesn’t make a point of associating with him. It works for them. When she brings him out with her, they fight on opposite sides of the field. It works, even if any time spent outside of battle or rest is filled with her sneaking glances at him, like she’s trying to figure him out.

Her looks get more curious when she finds out about Bull’s darequrnaas, until she corners him one evening on his way to the library to bother a vint, stopping him in Skyhold’s great hall.

“Inquisitor,” Bull says, respectfully, and she frowns at him for long enough he shifts foot to foot, cobblestones uneven under his soles.

“My pa’s Tal-Vashoth,” she says, the words bursting out of her, too loud in the quiet emptiness of the hall. She pauses as her voice echoes. She swallows. “He didn’t mean to be. He met my mam and he fell for her — North Rivain, y’know? Everyone sort of gets along, until somebody does something nobody likes and.”

She looks away from him, towards the archway above the doors leading out to the courtyard.

He forgets she’s young, by the south’s standards. At her age, he’d been on Seheron for what’d felt like half his life. Her parents raised her enough like a qunari that she’s been with the Valos Kas for a handful of years, but you can’t compare the way somebody was reared with the Qun to somebody who’s got a family.

She draws her lower lip between her teeth and takes a deep breath. “One of my pa’s yearmates knew what would go wrong, saw it coming. He got Pa’s darequrnaas somehow, bribed a hiraas or sneaked it out. Pa doesn’t know how. But they got it, and Pa got out, and here I am.”

She looks back at him, expression firm, mouth pursed. “I didn’t know how long you’d stay alive after that shitstorm on the coast.” Her eyes dart to the side and with obvious effort she looks back at him. “But you did the right thing, and somebody thought you were important enough to keep alive, like with my pa. And I can’t — my pa was never good with it, keeping the box in our house, it freaked him out. But mam kept it for him, and that almost made it okay.”

She moves a hand up through her coarse brown hair, a sudden movement in the stillness of the hall. “I just — wanted you to know. Whoever got your darequrnaas here, they wanted you alive more than they believed in the Qun. Like my,” she tugs on her hair once, and laughs softly, disbelievingly, “like my pa’s yearmate.” She drops her hand to her side. Her shoulders droop and she ducks her head, rubbing a palm against her thigh. “It’s shitty to want to throw that away.”

He could get mad that Vivienne had told her, but there’s a logic to everything Vivienne does, and Bull’s not stupid enough to dismiss her reasoning without consideration.

He huffs a laugh, and gives her a nod. She looks visibly relieved, and nods in return before scurrying off towards her quarters.

He doesn’t end up going to see Dorian.

He’s too in his head. Wouldn’t be good company.

Thing is — it’s hard to tell a Vashoth that qunari need the Qun. It’s hard to tell a saarebas who’s always had her heart in her chest what it’s like, the reassurance that comes with knowing if you’re ever dangerous someone will handle you. The motivation that gives you, to do your damn best.

In his room he pulls the darequrnaas out of the drawer. Fiddles with the lock. He’s not a lockpick of any skill, hands too big, but he’d be the laughingstock of the Chargers if he couldn’t open a locked box. He pries the lid open with the dagger he keeps under the mattress and his own easy strength, and he keeps the lid shut, one hand on either side of the box like it’d jolt open of its own volition.

He thinks of a knife and a steady hand, and the anger Gatt always held just below boiling, and how fierce his sense of loyalty was. He thinks of the prayer of the maaksur alqalb, words firm off the hiraas’s tongue, and what he’d believed was the mercy in it, the promise of relief to be found beyond the madness of abandoning the Qun.

He considers what would be done to someone who’d allowed a Tal-Vashoth to escape with their darequrnaas, to escape the mercy and terrible peace of the maaksur alqalb.

He doesn’t open the box. He puts it on top of his desk, near the brush Dorian left behind.

He sits on the edge of his bed, hands curled around the side of the mattress, nails hooked into the bottom of the frame.

He’s pissed off. He’s grateful, too.

The cavity in his chest aches.

He weeps.

 

==

 

Dorian runs his fingers over the top of the darqurnaas. He starts, jerking his hand back when his thumb hooks under the lid and it lifts. He turns to Bull, fishmouthing at him. “You’ve opened it?”

Bull pauses in adjusting his pauldron, the strap too loose even for wandering around Skyhold. “Unlocked it. Haven’t opened it yet.”

The morning sun filtering through the window makes Dorian’s skin glow, all of it on display. Comfortable, in Bull’s room.

Dorian shifts, gazing back at the box. “Are you going to?”

On anybody else, that might be laced with intent — a push towards one answer or another, or with a hope to be there if it happens. Dorian’s only curious. Morbidly, maybe, but then he’s a fan of what makes most squeamish.

“Don’t know if I want to.”

Dorian hums, and reaches for it again, following the carved identification number on its lid with a finger.

Bull joins him, and reaches past him, lifting the box between them. _It made me feel safer_ , he thinks, and holds the darequrnaas out to Dorian, who takes it in his surprise.

“I’m — Bull.”

“You don’t need to open it.” Bull hates the desperation he can hear coloring his voice. He swallows. He centers himself. Maybe he should’ve waited for Dorian to put on clothes. “I know it’s fucked up. But it’s — it’d mean a lot to me. If you held onto it.”

“That is — grossly inappropriate,” Dorian says, voice thick, in his throat, but his hands curl around the box, his grip careful. “This is. I’ve no idea what to do with this.”

Bull feels weak, with how he could love this man.

“Hiraas guard their assigned darequrnaas. If something goes tits up, they protect everyone, make the difficult decisions. They keep their assignments safe, and they keep everybody around them safe.”

Thunder crashes across Dorian’s features, an argument Bull’s heard before eager on his lips, and Bull lifts a hand, palm out, calming. It’s… it’s unsettling to think that someone would trust in you so wholeheartedly they’d get pissed being reminded of a simple truth.

_Wholeheartedly._ Bull laughs, closing his eye. _Shit._

“There’s another part to it. One that doesn’t get used a lot.”

He thinks about the Inquisitor’s parents. How her dad felt better knowing her mom guarded his darequrnaas for him.

“ _Kadan_ ’s an old Qunlat word, old as all shit. It means your chest. Where your heart is.”

He slides his hands over Dorian’s, holding the darequrnaas between them. Dorian’s watching him closely, like he’s trying to piece Bull together.

“Nowadays you use it for people you care about. Comrades, friends — people you’re close to. If you poke around though, there were other uses a long time ago. Mostly for Qunari who didn’t have a hiraas.”

Dorian’s eyes narrow. He’s been researching, Bull knows — Bull doesn’t have the information he’d want, doesn’t known enough about Qunari blood magic to appease Dorian’s curiosity. Bull doubts anybody knows enough.

“I need to be dressed for this conversation,” Dorian snaps, but immediately follows it up with, “A hiraas is required, if for no other reason than the maaksur alqalb.”

He doesn’t butcher the Qunlat. Bull’s so fucking fond.

“But it’s the story. Your kadan, somebody you loved. You’d exchange darequrnaas and be each other’s hiraas. It was symbolic, y’know. Where your heart lies.” He has no idea how this conversation’s going to end. He’s not gonna hope. Blood magic’s a nasty topic to bring up anyway, and then you have the shit Dorian’s slogged through.

He’d accept it, if Dorian pushed the box into Bull’s chest. He’d put it back on his desk and make it work.

He feels like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff looking down.

_It made me feel safer_ , he thinks again, and he lowers his head.

“You don’t have to say yes. Just — consider it.”

“‘Consider it’, he says,” Dorian frets. But when he steps back from Bull he takes the darequrnaas with him, cradled against his skin.

He hesitates at the desk, and when he speaks his voice comes out strained. “Somebody you loved.”

Bull swallows. “Shit. Yeah.”

Dorian’s laugh is frenzied. “I’d certainly imagined this conversation differently. Though I was naked, so well done.”

Bull’s responding laugh feels punched out of his chest.

Dorian has yet to put the darequrnaas down.

“You don’t have to say yes,” Bull says again, and he watches Dorian lift the lid on the box and behold his heart, beating slowly on a nest of sawdust.

Bull’s not sure what he expected, when he finally saw it. If he ever did. It still feels like nothing — just a thing in a box, that keeps him upright. That keeps him alive. That Dorian holds like it’s precious.

“I thought they’d at least have sprung for silk,” Dorian says, glancing up at Bull. He licks his lips, and tries another word on for size: “Amatus.”

Bull breathes out, slow. He feels lightheaded. Like somebody else is holding him up. Lighthearted, maybe. Shit.

“Bull. Amatus.” Dorian’s voice is concerned, and he’s at Bull’s side in an instant, darequrnaas on the desk but still fucking open.

Dorian reaches up and wipes the tears from Bull’s cheek, and leaves his palm there, curved around Bull’s jaw.

“I’m good,” Bull says, and thinks it could be true. Thinks it will be. Knows, with a warmth that fills his cavernous chest. “I’m good, kadan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!!! i'd love to hear from you, either below in a comment or on [tumblr](http://amurderof.tumblr.com/ask). ♥ you're the best.


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